Chuck Yates Needs A Job

0:20 Hey everybody, welcome to Chuck Yates needs a job. The podcast in my ongoing series on the railroad commissioner. I guess we can kind of like title this anybody but Wayne. Just kidding, Wayne,

0:31 you're more than welcome on the podcast. If you'd like, I'm just joking. We've had on Sarah Stodgener who ran in the Republican primary. We had on Luke Warford, who is the Democratic nominee.

0:43 So of course, being that I'm the libertarian, I had to have the libertarian candidate on. So I got Jaime Diaz on today. Did I come anywhere close to pronouncing your name correctly? That was

0:54 super good. That was great. Jaime is so thing with

0:59 Jaime is it's Jamie in English, right? But in Spanish, the Jason H. So it's Jaime and then my family is Andreas and which is like Andrew and then my last name is Diaz. That Diaz is like the

1:11 number 10 in Spanish The only difference is that with Diaz, there's no emphasis on the I. So it's just Diaz, the is for the next one on the iso. So listeners of the podcast and they that I add

1:24 three to four letters to every word in English. So the fact I got remotely close in Spanish is is unbelievable. So let's do this. Who the hell are you? So like I said, my name is Jaime Diaz. I'm

1:41 the Liberty Canada for Railroad Commission. I grew up in Brownsville, Texas.

1:46 I grew up there. My dad was a dozen immigration law down there. And my mom, she was she had her own flower shop when she had me. She left that and she raised me and my two other siblings

2:03 So I went school up until college in Brownsville. Then when I went to college, actually my plan was really to go into political science. So I went to school in DC and in DC I was working with my

2:17 congressman, Philharmon Bele. It's actually a Democrat. And you know, I don't know - So what college in DC - George Washington - George Washington, okay, gotcha - Yeah, so I applied to

2:27 Georgetown, but I didn't make the cut - Now is it still true? What used to be like when I was back in the day, so a hundred years ago, the way you got into Georgetown was you applied to the

2:38 nursing school. Is that still the trick you're supposed to do? You applied to the nursing school and then you show up and go, Ooh, I changed my mind - Yeah, I mean, that's a strategy. I didn't

2:48 know that, yeah, you have to apply to the easiest major in whatever school you applied to. And then from there, once you're in, you could transfer to whatever, right? But like for somebody, TI

2:57 applied to McCombs. I did not get into McCombs, right? So, but I mean, you've got to apply to UT, you know, something not as - It's crazy today. I mean, I don't know that I would have gotten

3:08 it. I would get into college today, you know, just kind of, it was really funny though. So way back in the day, Oklahoma was playing Nebraska on football sitting around watching it on a Saturday.

3:21 And every one of the Nebraska football players, their major was general studies. And so we sat there all the next week calling the admissions office at Nebraska. We're really interested in this

3:36 general studies major can you say this information? I think finally Nebraska was like, please stop calling.

3:44 All right, so George Washington, you're working with the Democratic Congressman. Yeah, and I mean, I just didn't like engaging in politics 24 that's basically DC, right? So I ended up switching

3:56 back to Texas and I grew in school in SMU, which is in Dallas. And I started off in economics, ended up switching over to engineering to mechanical engineering. So that's why I graduated as, and

4:08 once I finished my four and a half years, I took an extra victory lap to finish. But as I finished that up, I decided to move back home to text to be with my family. I'd been away from them for

4:18 almost five years at the time, right? So I moved back home in

4:23 2019. When I moved back, I was working scrap metal sales for a bit. That was interesting. I was doing software implementation. I worked for a while with a company in Mexico, in the US. It was

4:36 doing software research like market analysis. And I got paid in Bissells. That was not fun. But I learned a lot.

4:47 I learned a lot And then COVID started. So COVID kind of, I guess I moved back. And I just moved back to Brownsville with the attention of just doing whatever I could, right? It's living with my

4:59 parents. And COVID starts and basically whatever moment in my head, it just kind of dried up. So a friend of mine actually suggested, Hey, there's going to be the school board election. Why

5:10 don't you run for that? So I had never even considered running for office. I was 24 at the time I figured you know, you know, like Let's try it out, right? How hard could it be? I - Hold on,

5:20 hold on. Dachorm is actually gonna make me ID you, 'cause I don't believe you're 24 right now - No, no, I was 24 at the time - Well, I don't think you're 24 right now. You're so young looking.

5:32 But I say that as a compliment. 'Cause trust me, trust me, in 20 years you're gonna love it. No, I'm just kidding - No, no, no, I mean, I still get ID to buy, to buy beer sometimes - Holy

5:45 cow - When you six - There you go - You're 26 - Yeah, I know that, I mean, that's like him, I'm sure, 'cause if I don't wear this shirt, I look like I'm 14 years old. Yeah, I mean, if I had a

5:55 My Well, just wear a T-shirt. But - We support that at Digital Wildcatters. We're okay with that. So, all righty, so COVID's hitting, your friend's saying, Run for school board - So, I mean,

6:08 I, for first off, like I went online, right, and I Googled, you know, how to sign up for an election. The only prerequisite is just - You have to be 18 to run for school board. And there's

6:20 three documents, I think, from the state. It's a TAC, the treasure, assignment, and some other one. Simple enough, I printed them out, signed up to BISD to the Brownston and the Infinite

6:31 School District building, signed up for the election. And I started just learning about BISD, to learn about the different issues that were affecting the school board. And now as always, we did a

6:44 campaign together It was just me and my friends. We didn't hire any professionals. So it was a lot of fun. And it was three candidates, we ended up in second place. But during that time was when

6:52 I

6:58 got really into Bitcoin. So when

7:03 the pandemic started, and they built their airlines pretty quick into it, right? And when I was younger, when I was in Georgia Washington, my head had bought me stress tests by Timothy Gartner

7:14 And I need the first like. of the books talking about the moral hazard of building out the banks, right? If you build out the banks now, you're going to set up a president that too big to fail

7:22 banks can do whatever they want. The things get bad, they're going to get built out again. So, when COVID starts, I'm like, Oh, the airlines, they're not going to get built out, moral hazard.

7:32 And they got built out immediately. At which point, I started to think, Something's wrong here. So, I ordered a Ray Dalio has a series

7:44 of three books and they're called Big Debt Crysis's. And I started reading that. And I was just talking about companies with lots of debt, how they got of it normally, right? And the book they

7:55 were out saying, usually they get out of it because they raise taxes on the rich, which usually leads to a capital flight. They. Lower the whole. Rich people can change their behavior - You're

8:10 ever employed lawyers and accountants to do it - Yeah, good.

8:15 And yeah, they could also just inflate their currency away, right? If the debt that they owe in there and the denominated currency, that that they control, so their inflation. And then the other

8:25 two are just default, just we're not going to pay them. That's it. And the third and the fourth one is kind of like a soft default. So, so, like, you know, I'm not going to pay you back all

8:34 the money, but let's renegotiate, right? The debt. So those were the four. And I was like, wow, you know, looks like, you know, it's going to end I mean, this big debt crisis can't end well

8:45 for the dollar at the very least. So, I mean, first of all, I wanted to see how I could buy gold, right? But, but I mean, that was, I mean, I want to cuss in my own gold. Right. And then

8:56 that, I mean, it was just too much. So I ended up getting into Bitcoin and, you know, so I bought some Bitcoin, you know, bought some more. And I think two months in, I had all my money in

9:08 Bitcoin. I said, I still have all my money in Bitcoin So what levels are

9:13 you buying in at back then? Repandemic, what? Five, and 5, 000 - No, so it was scary when I started buying, 'cause I started buying right after the 5, 000 dip - Okay - And it was around, it

9:25 was around like nine to 10 around that time. So I was worried, 'cause I was like, wow, if I buy now and we dip back to five, well, I just am down 50, right? But I mean, I figured, you know,

9:37 lots of times in my life, you know, I've been like, well, you know, I should buy later on when the price gets lower and I was regret it, 'cause the price always goes higher whenever, whenever I

9:43 get in that mentality So I'm like, I'm gonna buy now. It goes down to 5, 000, I'll buy more. But I'm not gonna sit on the sidelines just because, because, you know, when I look at the little

9:52 price chart, it used to be at five, right? So this was around, yeah, around nine, 10. And I mean, from there, I had rallies, it would go back down, do little rallies. It never went back

10:02 down to five.

10:04 But that was around the time that I got into Bitcoin, and then I started reading the Bitcoin center, right? Like everybody into Bitcoin does. And it talks about the Austrian economics, I've heard

10:15 about in my entire life. And so I got really into that just, you know, well, Australian economics, it's just idea that, you know, in free markets, the government should stay out

10:27 of it. It's very much in favor of just laying the business cycle play itself out without intervention in favor of lots of creative destruction, right? So a good example, I guess, is kind of like

10:37 the forest resistance in California. You know, when there's like little fires, they put them out real quick And then this creates this macro environment for these huge wildfires to then

10:51 manifest themselves. And

10:55 I feel like that was kind of like what we had seen with the OA crisis, at least with the bailouts and now heading into COVID, I was like, well, so this might be, you know, the big wildfire right

11:06 then

11:08 And so I was in Tossernet economics to Bitcoin and then with school board, when you're for school board, all of the. teachers unions, they all send you questionnaires to fill out. And one of them

11:18 asked me about school choice, about charter schools. And I mean, this is my thinking. I mean, if anybody wants to correct me on why I'm wrong, I would love to hear it. But my thinking was,

11:30 well, if the school board's not doing a good job as it is, right? Ultimately, the victims are the children, right? So if parents think that, you know, that they're, that they're, could we

11:40 better off service in a charter school? And by all means, they should be able to, you know, get a voucher, take that to a charter school. And end of the day, it pushes the ISD to do a better

11:51 job, right? By, by holding it by at least allowing some free market, I guess, and, and allowing parents to, you know, vote where their kids want to go to school at, right? So that got me

12:03 down to libertarian rabbit hole. And this is like, I'm about to break out gears. This is so beautiful. We've, we've taken, I don't want to put words in your mouth

12:15 Growing up, probably more liberal of a Democrat and we actually reasoned and we read and we studied and now we're a libertarian. This is great.

12:26 Now, 'cause my issue on the school front is people are always, your name, whatever is to you are, racist, whatever. If you don't support public education and I always come back with, I actually

12:44 can live with public education. I don't like your delivery mechanism. Your delivery mechanism is the same as my great-great-grandfather went to. It's a public monopoly. If you live on this street,

12:58 you go to that school. And so it's not that I'm opposed to public education. I can kind of live with, we as a society are better off if everyone's educated, therefore let's all kick into the kitty,

13:10 but to not have competition introduced there. I mean, there's not.

13:19 a monopoly on the planet that doesn't suck. I mean, is there a good monopoly - I mean, it's hard to argue. I don't think so - Yeah, no, I kind of agree there. So you become, so studying to run

13:30 for the school board, all this, you become the libertarian. So why in God's name do you wanna be a railroad commissioner - Well, I mean, taking it just a step further on, I think it's

13:42 interesting that you said that I'm not being a Democrat 'cause at least engaging with the public, just doing what I talked to Republicans, I mean, they know what a libertarian is and they

13:49 understand it. Democrats in general have no clue what a libertarian is. And I mean, that was at least me growing up. I knew that there's Republicans, Democrats. I knew that there was a Green

14:00 Party and I knew that there's a libertarian party at absolutely no clue what either the two stood for, right? And yeah, I think that is interesting regardless of at least the party's messaging that

14:10 Democrats really don't know what a libertarian is.

14:15 And so going back to the Road Commission thing, so when this happened, I started giving 25 to the party. A year, just to do a small contribution. And

14:25 I mean, at this point, I was also done with politics. It's not really fun to run for office - It sucks - Yeah, I mean, it's, we don't need people digging into my background - I mean, I'm 26,

14:38 right? So I grew up in there of the cell phone, so - Yeah - I mean, if you dig - Oh, no, I mean, got it. We had cell phones back in the day - Oh, gosh - No, but, but -

14:54 The nervous laugh, right - Yeah, exactly - No, mom - No, no, I'm playing that - Yeah.

15:04 So, so you're giving 25 bucks to the party a year, and eventually somebody from the party, or not from the party, just a libertarian reached out to me. I ended up getting 25 to the libertarian

15:16 booster pack as a donation and they reached out. They're like, Hey, we saw you're getting money. If you're from South Texas, tell us about yourself, right? I just told them, I'm basically what

15:27 I told you right now, right? And they're like, All right. You know, hung up the phone. Didn't think much of it, right? And oh no, the reason they reached out is because on the flyer that they

15:38 sent me for the booster pack, they had asked, Do you want to run for office? Do you want to volunteer? Or do you want to party suggestion, right? So I didn't really want to volunteer because I

15:49 mean, I was the only libertarian that I knew in Brownsville, so I'm like, I'm not going to do a party of one here in Brownsville. Give me your suggestion on what I can do. Maybe I can help you

15:58 with means or something, right? And they

16:02 ended up calling me back a couple days later and this friend of mine, he's like, So Jaime you, know what, I think if you're in for office, how do you feel about that? like, well, you know, I

16:14 just ran for school board. It was, you know, so-so. But what are you thinking, right? And,

16:23 you know, I was thinking maybe like something, I don't know, municipal level, something like that. And he tells me, he's like, I think it'd be good if you were in for road commission, which,

16:32 I mean, at that point, I understood what road commission was. I understood it was a misnomer. I understood it over-solid, allowing gas industry Actually,

16:43 some, so some guy that I, or some man that I know, he actually was road commissioning from Brownsville, went to my high school as well. And so, so I decided to buy a idea of what it was, and

16:54 I'm like, look, I mean, I'm not sure I'm your candidate. I'm 20, I'm 20, I was 25 years old at the time, 26 now. I'm 25 years old and, and, you know, he told me, he's like, look, you

17:05 know, you're young, but I mean, that's fine of Engineering in college and I knew a lot of the least concepts in regards to the oil and gas industry, they do stem out of, you know, engineering,

17:17 mechanical engineering. There's a lot of overlap, a lot of fluid dynamics. So, and I'm

17:23 like, all right, look, because I'm also bad saying, all right, I'm like, look, if you can't find anybody else to run, I'll sign up, but, but I need to find someone, you know, different.

17:33 And in reality, this stemmed more, I guess, from my own

17:38 Like, I think in life, a lot of times people, you know, want to feel ready to do something. And

17:44 you always put off doing things that you want to do because you don't feel like you're ready yet, right? And I felt like that was kind of like me at that moment, right? Like, like, in reality,

17:55 I was aware that, you know, most people in the road commission don't have any only guest background. They don't know anything about the industry. But, but I felt that, you know, You know, I

18:06 guess it was a lack of, I guess

18:11 I mean, irrespective of that, so we looked at that, hung up the phone,

18:17 and he called me back the 8th of December. The Deline to sign up is a 10th,

18:21 and he's like, Hime, we didn't find anybody else, we were willing to sign up. What a sales pitch. And I'm like, Well, I'm a man of my word, so I guess I will, so I think the

18:34 8th or 9th I put in my paper to sign up for Road Commission And I bought a bunch of books, started reading up about it, at least got more or less first on what the issues were. And it's fascinating,

18:48 especially because you're dealing with so many different rights in regards to the Road Commission, like for example, you've got the people that own the mineral rights, the people on the surface

18:56 rights. You've got people actually ground water, you've got people that at least breathe in the air rights, so they have rights to clean air As a Road Commissioner, I guess you're kind of, so

19:09 there's a good quote by Thomas Sol that There are no solutions. There's only trade-offs.

19:16 I think that's very true, especially with the Rural Commission, that it's

19:22 hard to sometimes say where my rights start and years begin. But I do think that the Rural Commission at the very least needs a little more transparency in regards

19:34 to how it makes those trade-offs So this is actually really cool because let me tell you what I kind of struggle with.

19:45 I was in oil and gas for call it 25 years. And the free market principles as a libertarian, it's really easy to apply to sneaker companies, right? If Nike makes crappy shoes, go buy Adidas,

20:01 right? And the market punishes those that make bad sneakers.

20:08 I believe to your point about trade-offs. I agree, there is no utopia. Guess what? Trotsky was wrong. I mean, there is no utopia. There are only these trade-offs. I even think markets do a

20:20 better job with social type issues. The Yankees don't wanna sign a black player. Guess what? The Dodgers will. And I generally have a belief that the freer the markets are, the better folks have

20:37 a tendency to do, et cetera. The one thing that I'm gonna kind of challenge you to do, being the libertarian looking at our industry, is we gotta figure out how to navigate that and let me throw

20:53 some things at you. One, our product is literally a barrel of oil that goes on a global market. So you don't know if you bought a diamond-backed barrel of oil, you don't know if you bought a

21:06 pioneer barrel oil. So there's an element of the consumer, you know, looking at the oil and gas company, doesn't know what they just bought. Um, and plus it's got to go through the refineries,

21:20 all that sort of stuff. There's that.

21:24 The, the second thing that happens, you and I have talked about how we despise monopolies in effect when an oil and gas company signs a lease to go, you know, we go to farmer Bob and we say, Hey,

21:40 you're 20, 000 acre. We want to sign a lease because we want to drill here. You've in effect created a monopoly on that 20, 000 acres. Um, and that leads to, to difficulties because there are

21:54 rights that farmer Bob has in that lease. Hey, if you don't drill wells over certain times, if you stop production, I can go least to somebody else And the most part, I mean, literally their

22:06 lease is in effect 100 years out in our business

22:12 and so it's going to be interesting watching you with your libertarian beliefs study this industry and figure out where is that balance because even me, the libertarian and I'm all for free markets

22:29 and blah, blah, blah, you go, there's got to be at least somewhat of a framework there. And I don't know that I have a good answer for it Yeah, it's funny. One of the things I think is

22:41 interesting is for example, flared gas, right?

22:45 Right now it's a big or it's an issue that lots of people talk about. And it's funny because at least when you're talking about flared gas, I don't know how to see at least in regards to Texas but

22:55 also in regards to the national and international level, right? So I mean if you just say like for example, we flared X amount of cubic beats of

23:04 let's say casting head gas in Texas last year, right?

23:09 because you have to normalize in regards to at least how many barrels were extracted, right? And the thing is that, for example, if you do look at at least the flaring intensities, so how much

23:21 gases flared versus how many barrels of oil are extracted, in Texas it's much lower than the rest of the world, right? So if you're an environmentalist group, I mean your gut instinct would say,

23:30 well, let's stop flaring in Texas, right? Which I mean would then also require them taking these walls offline, which would also boost the price of the barrel, right? But I guess those are

23:39 secondary effects because they're only objective, it's a stop flaring. The thing is that, well, in a net, now that oil is not being produced by Texans, it's being produced elsewhere, right? In

23:50 areas in which, you know, at least the environmental practices aren't as, let's say, conscientious, right? Sure. So as a whole, you've actually probably increased the amount of flaring

24:03 internationally, right? And at least whenever you're talking about these issues, you're talking in respects to the atmosphere, right? It's like the atmosphere is like, Oh, well, you know,

24:12 this is, you know, let's say a cubic foot of methane into the atmosphere from China, it's only gonna affect China, not the US. That's not the way you wanna say on the podcast. There's not a

24:21 peeing and non-ping part of the pool. Somebody pees in the pool, you got pee in the pool - You pee in the pool - Yeah. No, that's a great point.

24:32 And I think one of the things that's frustrating for me, 'cause I think energy is so important that it deserves a fair, intellectually honest discussion. 'Cause you just framed something that's

24:45 real. I mean, there is a cost to society of flaring. I mean, CO2 emissions, pollution. I may think the cost is this much, Greta may think it's this much, the end of all humanity. There is a

25:05 cost and right now there's no price on it, right? There's only regulation to stop it. So we're, you know, so that would say, oh, Chuck, so you're for our carbon tax. I don't know, but at the

25:18 end of the day, I do get usually, usually where markets work best is when everything's priced in 'cause then you can punish the bad stuff. But where I was going with this is, I think one of the

25:29 things you're gonna face is exactly that It's the relative thing versus the absolute. The environmentalist is the absolute, no flaring, the relative person is like, well, let's triple oil

25:41 production in Texas. One, 'cause we flare less. And number two, we at least watch it if it's here. I guarantee you there's nobody wearing a green piece t-shirt watching the oil production in

25:54 Venezuela, you know? So - Yeah, it's, I mean, it's funny 'cause I mean, growing up on the border, you're very aware of both sides, right? Well, I'm to the US. when I'm in Mexico, right?

26:05 And it's funny because you have lots of people that, you know, have strung a piece of Raza, how things should be done in the US. Yet, I mean, they have no problems buying something else made in

26:14 Mexico with not great working conditions. And I mean, it's very much like out of sight, out of mind. The thing is that at least regulations is not necessarily, I think the answer to a lot of this

26:23 stuff. Like for example, right now with the Bitcoin space, they've been doing a lot of mining with flared gas, right? The nice thing about mining with flared gas is that at least monetized an

26:35 asset that prior, wasn't a, or that previously couldn't monetize, right? That you would flare it off the casting good gas. The thing is that, you know, if we impose regulations in the US to

26:45 limit flaring, I mean, they're not going to respect that abroad. The thing is that if we innovate and do stuff like, for example, start mining Bitcoin to monetize that stratative energy asset,

26:55 well, now all of a sudden, you know, they're doing it in a rush. They're doing it in, you know, Iraq, Iran, they're doing it in, in, uh, I'm not doing it because they cut the environment.

27:04 you're cutting it right up because it makes him money. But the thing is, at least through allowing innovation in Texas,

27:10 you're creating things that are not only environmentally favorable, but that are also economically viable and economically self-sufficient. So I think that that's a great way to reframe at least

27:21 without we look at energy policy when the state of Texas - Yeah, no, I think definitely as we sit here and we have these discussions, the way I kind of frame it up, is we ignore CO2 going from 300

27:40 parts per million to where are we today? 425 parts per million in the environment. It looks like the temperature's up a point and a half because of that now. Some would argue the environmentalists

27:51 always choose 1850 as the year kind of the baseline because it was the lowest year in the last 10, 000 years. But we can debate that I do think we ignore it at our at our own peril, that being said,

28:07 when you, to your trade-off point, which is a great one, is hydrocarbons and the burning of it do a lot for our standard of living. And the only people that can afford to go to net zero are the

28:20 people that have really high standards of living, ie. America, ie. Europe, you know? Africa cannot go net zero and have any sort of standard of living. Asia is still struggling with it So I

28:33 think kind of the balancing act you do is really twofold as one. We've got to get people to as high standard of living as possible, as quick as possible. That's number one. And then number two,

28:46 technology, technological innovation, human ingenuity, that's going to be what solves this problem. It is truly not going to be - we're going to put a wind turbine on every corner. It's just not

28:57 going to happen I don't think it's even fair to.

29:04 suggest that as something. So you got to balance that. And ultimately what technology comes down to, if we're going to solve this problem, shots on goal. We need way more of it. We need to be

29:16 funding that. We need inventors inventing, scientists doing research, entrepreneurs starting companies. 'Cause at the end of

29:25 the day, it's

29:27 that's how 2050, 2100, that's how we're going to get to net zero. It's not going to be because we all decide to go live in that chut - It's fascinating. Like even for example, in regards to the

29:42 solar panel and winter buying battery packs, all that technology. And you know, people will tell me all the time, they'll be like, But I mean, we have to transition to renewables. It's cheaper.

29:51 It's like, All right, if it's cheaper, do you have solar panels and a battery pack in your own home? And they never see that you do. 'Cause it's really not cheaper once you actually get

29:60 installing it and at least a

30:03 I mean, the battery pack doesn't last forever. It decays. It's like your phone battery and you have to replace it very so often. And it's really not cheaper than just, you know, being plugged

30:11 into the grid, right? And then the grid for a large part of the power does come from fossil fuels. I think that's

30:19 always like a very interesting point in regards to renewables. Also, we're in with our energy crisis. It's not like, you know, over there in Europe there or in Germany, they're calling for more

30:30 wind turbines or more solar panels. They're not I mean, they want more fossil fuels. That's what they need to put to bring and keep the lights on - Although, you know what? I'm going to push back

30:38 on you a little bit because this is weird. So about a month ago, I was over in Europe with the three kids. There would be in such a pain in the ass. It's like, where do you want to go? Oh, go,

30:49 go, go, go. You're going to get your phone. I was just like, all right, Kelly, name a city. Berlin. I go, okay, Sarah, name a city. Madrid, Charlie, name a city, Barcelona. So that's

30:59 where we went. Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid.

31:03 in Berlin, could you think that Germany's going to be ground zero for this? I mean, they are falling off a cliff like nothing. None of the cab drivers are bitching about high gasoline prices,

31:16 none of the shopkeepers, restaurants. And look, I get it. I don't speak German. So it's not like these were my best buddies and we were having heart to heart talks over beers. But you know how

31:26 when you travel, you talk to people and stuff There didn't seem to be any sort of concept or discussion or realization of just what's going on there. And so I posted that on Twitter. I got some

31:43 feedback from some folks. One person just said, well, the German government's kind of subsidizing the energy costs. So to some degree, the populace doesn't know. I don't know if that's true or

31:56 not, but okay, that kind of makes sense. And the second thing somebody tweeted back is the Germans are just austere. I mean, they're gonna pay their bill, they're not gonna bitch about it. I

32:07 mean, one of the funniest things I've ever seen is the Germans lecturing the Greeks on debt when the Greek debt crisis was going on. I mean, talk about, they almost took a ruler out and slapped

32:20 the Greeks on the hand when it was. So, but, you know, 'cause I think what ultimately needs to happen to have

32:26 a thoughtful energy policy, 'cause I'm not anti-renuables, to your point, if they

32:34 really are cheaper, let 'em go win in the market, or why do we have to have all these tax credits to get 'em built if they're truly are cheaper? But, you know, at the end of the day, it's gonna

32:44 take, I think, popular uprising of the people demanding a thoughtful energy policy, as opposed to we're gonna get a president elected who's thoughtful about energy and leads the charge in that

32:57 direction - Yeah, yeah, it's also funny, like, another thing that, I mean just do this cap here, or information and just is that the US it's not a democracy. The US it's a constitutional

33:10 republic. And the fighting fathers are very thoughtful in regards to making it that. So the fighting fathers thought that at least a democracy, at least a period of democracy, which you know,

33:19 you're like the president kind of whatever he wants. They kind of assumed that that would devolve into mob rule, right? And that usually it was the majority of pressing minority, right? So that's

33:31 why they made the constitution, the Bill of Rights to establish certain rights that all individuals are entitled to. And I mean, and then you also like your, you know, your representatives to

33:42 then represent you. But I mean, while the constitution protects certain rights that you have, right? And the thing is, I don't really think he's inappropriate for politicians to be saying, like

33:51 this is the energy that we're gonna be using going on into the future. And he has a politician, you're not there for an industry. You're kind of just there to, I guess, protecting individuals,

33:59 the interests of society, right?

34:03 measure that. But I mean, in regards to the pollution being there, I mean, on behalf of renewables or have, have boiling gas, I mean, at least personally, I feel like, and as so far as

34:14 everyone's respecting everybody, I really don't care if you're using renewables or oil and gas, right? But at the market decide that like at least the, the, the tax credit scheme, it's, for my

34:24 understanding, I'm not too sure how it works, but, but I'm just going to say it aloud. And then if I'm running, could correct me. But at least how, how I understand it is that that there's

34:34 investment tax credit and there's a production tax credit, right? And what these credits do is that if you're a utility, this, the, the government will pay you to take off your cold nuclear,

34:48 natural gas, energy, if there's renewables, supply coming onto the market, right? So, so they'll pay you to basically favor renewables, as opposed to these other ones, right? Which, which,

35:05 It does create a lot of problems, especially if you're, I mean, one of these, if you're a natural gas utility, coal power plant, a nuclear plant, because I mean now, I mean, the government's

35:12 explicitly favoring one form of energy versus another, right? And I kind of don't feel like that's the role of the government, but this is my opinion - You're the one running for office, so you

35:23 should give your opinion - Yeah - No, I, 'cause

35:28 the problem I have with the government is, I mean, I'm a libertarian, so I think, I think, you know, at the end of the day, they shouldn't even meet, they shouldn't get together, you know,

35:40 the world's way too important to allow them to make laws, but, no, you're right. I mean, when they start picking favorites, and the problem is, is they're not being intellectually honest about

35:50 those favorites. Hey, 'cause I don't know how all the tax credits work in the renewable space, but I get pitch deals all the time where it's like, hey, if we fund the solar farm, We'll get all

35:60 our money back through tax. So if the farm makes any money, that's where we'll actually make some, but your downside is zero. You'll get all your money back. So I'm like, oh, that's kind of

36:10 interesting. But if the government's going to favor that, the government also needs to say, hey, when the sun is not shining, we will not have electricity. If it's a really, really cloudy day,

36:20 guess what? We're not going to have electricity on that day So we're pushing this, but don't assume you're going to have the reliability, the base load that a coal plant can provide, or a nuclear

36:33 plant can provide. And that's my problem, that they're not being intellectually honest about it. I'm with you. I wish government didn't have opinions about that kind of stuff. But yeah, to not

36:45 even be intellectually honest about it. Yeah. People don't really even understand at least how a greater works Whenever I talk to people at the road commission, I try to more explain why we do need

36:55 some base load power, some peaker plants, natural gas plants. and how at least putting a sporadic load like renewables onto there makes operation of the grid itself very complicated, right? So

37:06 that's

37:08 one thing that when I talked to people, they don't understand that very well. So I feel like once we're able to at least establish that, then we would have a more constructive conversation. Even

37:17 in regards, you mentioned the carbon credits, which I think is really funny because whenever they mentioned carbon credits, they mentioned it in regards to the oil and gas sector, right? But it's

37:29 like, I mean, okay, well, first of all, there's interesting discussion going on in regards to carbon dioxide itself, right? Like there's no debate on whether or not carbon dioxide heats the

37:41 atmosphere. It does, but also it doesn't heat the atmosphere in a linear rate, right? So for example, if you're putting in one ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the second ton that

37:51 you're emitting is only going to have half the greenhouse effect of the first one, right? So for example, once in a greenhouse of carbon dioxide, he's atmosphere by one degree. And that second

38:00 ton is only going to hit it by half a degree, right? So it's kind of like, how do you say it's logarithmic? It kind of like asymptops off. So I mean, first off, that's one thing that is

38:12 interesting, right? Secondly, like you were saying, if you look at it at least historically, there's been points that we've had way higher chromatocs at than we've had today.

38:22 And then secondly, there's that whole, which I started looking into it recently. I've had people talk, talk to me about it I'm just curious about the

38:32 fertilizer effect or

38:35 the greening effect. That more carbon dioxide is better for the plants to replant food. It is plant food. That's what they do. I always say that technology to get rid of CO2 and the atmosphere

38:48 actually exists. It's called a plant. There's also a whole diatribe I've done like a couple of times on the podcast You know what, one of the greatest removers of carbon on the planet is, it's

39:00 actually the whale. So if you think about it, we had call it 5 million whales on the planet. We figure out whale blubber is really good. We burn lamps on it and all that. So what do we do? We

39:13 whale, we kill as many whales as we can. We got Moby Dick out there, you know, going to town. So we take the whale population. I think the whale population today is about 12 million whales out

39:27 there. That's what we've done over the last 200 years.

39:32 What's interesting is a whale will sequester carbon in its body of like 33, 35 tons. And what does it do? It dies and it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. So it takes the carbon away. So that's

39:50 one thing that it does. The second thing is what

39:56 actually filters out call it 40. of the CO2 on the planet, plankton. You know, I mean algae in the ocean, right, basically. And the greatest

40:09 fertilizer for plankton is whale poop. You know, it's got all the nutrients in it that plankton needs. So in effect, I mean, we potentially have done the rising carbon by just getting rid of the

40:25 whales, you know. And so anyway, I throw that out there because no, I think you're right. I mean, I think we do know that more CO2 will warm. We just don't know how much CO2 actually leads to

40:41 the warming versus bigger forces. I mean, you know, for a while there, the Russians were able to track the temperature on the earth based on solar flares, you know, and actually said it had

40:54 nothing to do with our environment. So, but again, I don't want to come

40:59 climate denier, but because I do think we ignore this at our own peril. My whole point is we just, we need to know what we know, what we don't know, and be careful and measured on how we get

41:09 there. So. Well, and the thing that I was going out with that whole, I guess, like side train of thought was that you never talk about, for example, putting a carbon tax on solar panels or wind

41:21 trains that we make in China. I mean, why not? Well, we're put a slave labor tax on it. Yeah, exactly Solar panels are made slave labor. I mean, but it's a thing that's my big issue with the

41:33 carbon tax. It seems almost directed towards oil and gas industry, which I mean, that's fine. If you want to do a war on carbon dioxide, which if you want to do that, I mean, let's make it

41:42 across the board. We can't just make in regards to, but kind of like I would all sing it very much out of mind, out of sight and people don't, people don't mind. I've said on Twitter, and I

41:54 think I've said this on the podcast before too, is, the person that ought to pay to plug in an abandoned all the old wells in the state of Texas ought to be Amazon. Because they're the ones in all

42:08 seriousness, since the Shell Revolution, and we had, you know, we had minus 37 oil there for a while. I mean, who benefited? It was all their vans the All. around running transportation.

42:20 They're the ones that truly benefited from low oil prices more so than the companies. I don't think that gets there So let's do this. All right. So you're running for railroad commissioner. You

42:34 got Wayne, you got Luke.

42:37 What have you generated, if any, in terms of positions? You got a website, you're going to do all that so people can read what you think him? Yeah. Yeah. I've got a website on there. I guess

42:50 one of the biggest issues that we're focusing on is orphan wells. At least, for example, if I become a railroad commissioner, I think I'm going to do that I would like that by the time my six year

42:58 tenure ends, which that would be the end of it. There would be no second term. I want to live my life as a non-politician. I would like to actually see the number of orphaned wells going down year

43:09 by year, right? Because of now, I guess the amount of wells that the state's currently plugging versus the amount of wells that the state's currently taking online, or I guess orphaned wells

43:18 that's currently taking online. I mean, the amount of orphaned wells in Texas is going up and up and up, right? So we're actually getting on top of that issue - Another thing - And I'll say this

43:28 is,

43:31 that's actually just a matter of enforcing the laws that are on the books. That's not a new law. I think a fair ask from the railroad commission might be, Give me a little more money so I can hire

43:46 25 other people to drive around and make sure that's happening. But I don't think that's really a big deal. I will say this, generally my sense is with oil and gas companies, I mean, we used to

44:03 take the position, you know, 20 years ago when we buy a property, old well boards were actually worth the equipment you could yank out of them, right? So you know, we can get 50, 000 worth of

44:15 equipment out there. It'll cost us 10, 000 to plug it. Boom, we got 40, 000 there. We used to kind of look at it, you know, watching that through the years It became, and we didn't even

44:27 include that in the analysis of what to pay. But then, you know, later on, it's like, all right, we're going to have to plug all these wells. Let's put that money in, but it was always 30 and

44:36 40 years out. So it didn't matter. I mean, my last days at Caine, that was like the first sheet. We have this many wells. Here's the schedule over the next five years to get rid of them. And so

44:48 it's being taken seriously, but there does need to be some hurting in the cats there. right now we're being up at a tire cycling facility in South Texas and Brownsville. And we're just shooting

44:59 tires up into a crumb rubber. So like rubber, powder, rubber, granule. And

45:05 because of the T-CQ requires that we have a bond in place for in case we go bankrupt so that the tires can all be taken care of, right? So like for example, I feel like how you can financial

45:13 assurance is in place so it happens to the company or at least some kind of plan that got to be a good step forward besides that I do think that, I mean, like you were saying before, I do think

45:26 they need some kind of regulation, right? In order to at least protect our prior property rights and also our individual freedoms, I don't think you need a lot of it. The thing that I do think

45:34 that the, so a candidate for a road commission for the Victorian party, I think four or five, four or six years ago suggested an idea that every year 10 of all regulations on the books should be

45:47 reevaluated for efficacy, right? So just, you know, as this regulation made up, Is it, you know, at least,

45:55 accomplishing the intent result. And if not, I mean, get rid of it or change it. But the thing is that, I mean, regulations are interesting, right? Because one hand you buy regulations

46:05 actually do serve the public right out large. And then, but you also have regulations that are just there to raise operating costs. And just force small companies into consolidating the bigger ones.

46:18 And to basically leverage the government to force these

46:23 big, super big companies, right? Which in reality, that's in serious, serious, any body. So you've got, I guess, two theories in regards to governance. You've got it command and control,

46:32 right? So it's one that you set a very rigid framework in regards to how companies should operate. Which in general, bigger companies tend to like this because they always know that as long as they

46:40 act within the parameters, anything goes wrong. They could always say, hey, we were being compliant. It's not our fault. And they could point the figure back to the regulator. And no one gets

46:48 in trouble. Plus, they can afford to have the compliance department out over a lot more revenue than me and you starting an oil and gas company and having to go hire a third partner to do compliance.

47:01 Yeah, that would be fun. No, if I ever buy another working interest, just shoot me. And I will testify on your behalf to the judge. Yes. Yes. I told him to shoot me if I buy a working interest

47:13 again. And the other thing, I guess it is more is retribution, a restitution and retribution, right? So the thing is, you know, make it clear that,

47:26 for example, if you make a mess, you have to clean it up, you know? So there's, I think it's a Benjamin Franklin quote that says that, Announce of the cure is worth a pound of the prevention.

47:35 Or, no, back prevention. Yeah, it's proven it's worth it. Yeah. Yeah. And the hard thing about that, because I kind of agree with you is unfortunately, if we leave that wide open and

47:49 unfettered, it's decided in the courts. You know, and so potentially what I think we have to do, and we actually did this in Texas on tort reform, is you kind of have to put the framework around

48:04 it. We're gonna say that if you're in Ecter County and your water gets destroyed by the oil and gas company, it's worth X. And we may all not agree on X, or some people don't like it or whatever,

48:18 but at least give framework to what the fight's about so that those issues can get settled in a consistent and faster way, then just everybody goes to and lets let every judge decide this case or

48:35 that case - Well, it's also like, for example, if let's say Chevron does something bad in, I don't know, on my property, right? Let's see, I've got 100 acres or 1000 acres, right? I mean, I

48:46 don't have the resources to go out there and make a case against how, you know, this oil and gas operation. contaminated my groundwater or whatever, right? So at least like, again, the known

48:56 with your judicial system, if you don't have means, you get higher, you get a public defendant to represent you, right? Anything at that, the road commission should at least have some kind of

49:05 mechanism in place, maybe a public defendant type system, which I'm saying this, you know - Yeah, this is high level - This is high level. No, I actually kind of like that.

49:15 Maybe it's the, maybe they settle all disputes on Chuck Yates needs a job of the podcast. Come in - I mean, we was the people's score - I would support that - I wouldn't. I wouldn't. That sounds

49:27 miserable. But oh, by

49:31 the way, the funniest dispute I ever had is we had, we had leased some land. I want to say this was Northern Louisiana or it was Oklahoma. And the CEO calls me up and goes, well, we got sued

49:46 today. And I'm like, oh man, what, what, what? And he goes, well.

49:51 a landowner sued us claiming that I impregnated one of their cows. And I was like, well, did you? The CEO was, but no, no, no, of course not, but yeah, no, I would love to have a case like

50:10 that. I'm gonna chuck it, it's a job, the podcast. Not a big aqua for a day of a gig issue - What happened there? Well, what did the courts say or what - You know what kind of sucked about it?

50:23 It took about a year to get that case thrown out. I mean, it was ultimately thrown out. I mean, but I think we even filed in a response like a couple, a copy of Grey's Anatomy, the book saying,

50:35 it's impossible for him, you know, for inner species and cremation - Oh, so he thought he did it personally - Yeah, personally - Like him personally - I thought he brought a cow or something - No,

50:47 like a bull in? No, no, no. He was named. That's absurd. That's why he didn't talk to me for about two months when I'm on comment on, well, did you?

50:59 So, okay, so I like this. So basically we're gonna enforce the rules on the books. We're gonna get rid of abandoned wells. We're gonna figure out some dispute mechanism that's potentially more

51:10 fair. Yeah, well, the retribution versus command control, I'm just saying that we should defer whenever possible to restitution, retribution type system, right? But like you're saying, it's

51:21 not feasible all the time because you're dealing with lots of very large negative externalities that could come about through at least improper regulation. But so

51:37 that there is a big one. Well, what else? I can do lots of my train of thought. I do like the coming on and pledging the one term.

51:47 Oh yeah, yeah - You know who my hero is? My hero is Cincinnati. He was a Roman emperor, and what had happened was Rome was being invaded or something like that, and they made him emperor, and he

52:01 went out and he fought off the Spartans or whoever he fought off, and he served as emperor for 19 days, and then he quit, and he went back to till the fields, 'cause he's like, y'all only needed

52:13 me for those 19 days I've squelched the rebellion or whatever it was - Yeah, it's funny. People don't realize that.

52:21 The road commission matters a lot, right, and it's significant, but the thing is that, I think a lot of times at least, the same happened to me when I ran my first race, is that you get so

52:30 involved with the issues that you kind of forget about things that actually matter. Like, for example, like right now I'm in here having a conversation, and it's nice, it's a little moment,

52:40 right? You probably won't see each other again, most likely And the thing is that whenever you're in for office, you kind of. I don't know, a set of blinders on, right? And you kind of forget

52:50 about all the things that actually matter in or in front of you. Like, for example, with this whole campaign, I've been able to spend less time with my family, less time with my friends, which,

52:58 which I mean, I love them a lot. And I mean, I like my yoga practice. I've, I've really lacked on my yoga practice. And I mean, there are things that are small, but, but I do think that

53:08 there's a lot of significance in at least devoting yourself to those smaller things. And sometimes when you start focusing on the macro too much, it kind of does take away a lot of your, I guess,

53:18 a lot of your happiness per se. So that's kind of why I said the one term thing, because, you know, end of the day, I want to live my life. It's not like I want to be a politician, my entire

53:29 life. And you also get, you get caught up in the trappings. I mean, it's, it's pretty easy to become a congressman. And all of a sudden you're being driven everywhere you want to go. And

53:42 companies roll out lavish dinners for you and all and it's just and they're they're they're they're I think that's actually really healthy to say, Hey, I'm going to do it one term. So you can

53:53 actually, if company XYZ walks in with big campaign checks, I don't need it. I'm not running again. I think there's some health to that. So I closed with Luke with the big question, and I'll

54:10 close with you the same thing. Any nudity on this campaign? Hey, nudity. I mean, Sarah got her into the runoff with the pumpjack video. What's the plan? We've still got 60 days or 65 days or

54:25 whatever it is, so it'll be to be determined. Oh, nice. There we go. Stay tuned on that. Howly it's suspenseful. Hey, well, I appreciate you coming in and talking. This was fun, and I'm

54:34 actually impressed with for not being an industry, an energy industry

54:44 veteran, how you've picked stuff up. And I actually hope you continue 'cause the libertarians do need a voice here because what I think we've got, what I always say about the Republicans and the

54:58 Democrats is the Democrats are Trotsky and the Republicans are Stalin. Neither one of them is any good. So appreciate you coming in and I hope you stick with it - No, I appreciate your lot Chuck.